Just one year ago, Ethan struggled personally with his failures in baseball. Water streamed from his eyes during, just about, every game. Struck out…tears. Tagged out…tears. Someone cut in line…tears. It was hard for us to deal with. I know, he’s a little boy, but I wanted my little boy to behave more like a man. You know, take that disappointment and crush it! Arggg!!
I’m not creative.
“Oh, you’re sad; hey, listen to this lecture on overcoming.”
“Bummer that you struck out. Here’s what you did wrong.”
“Hey! There’s no crying in baseball!”
As you have probably guessed, nothing changed.
Then Lori, the coach’s wife, comes over one day and hands Ethan a little baggie of quarters. There were probably about 12 of them. She said, “I’m giving these quarters to you, but, every time you cry, you have to give me one back. At the end of the season you get to keep whatever you have left.”
Hmm…interesting. I had never thought of bribery… and it worked, like MAGIC!
At the end of the season he added eleven quarters to his piggy bank and we were all saved from an endless round of frustrated monologues.
I’ve never forgotten this magic and neither have my kids. This summer Ava joined a swim team and the practice pool was pretty cold. She was fine the first day, crying the second and third. This wasn’t shaping up to be a very good season for her, and so the magic bag of quarters made its second appearance. Her requirements were the same, hold back the tears and push past the discomfort. She has happily only lost one.
Today was Andrew’s first day of swim lessons. The pool is not bathtub warm and so he found his teeth chattering for most of the half hour. At one point he needed to use the restroom and the tears began to flow.
Enter; the magic quarters! He couldn’t wait to get his hands on that beautiful little bag of change. Only seven more lessons with no tears before those babies are fully earned.
Now, I don’t know how well they will work on my stubborn little almost 4-year old. He tends to think he can do whatever he wants. But I’m happy to let him try. I believe in the magic of coins!
3 comments:
We start swim lessons next week and there's bound to be some tears. Awesome idea, totally stealing this one!
Love it! I think my older kids would request dollars or more :( I "bribed" my oldest this year for magic mountain passes to bring up his grades to A's and B's (seem to have some lack of motivation after the first semester) I was breathing a sigh of relief because it looked impossible at the end...but he did it so now I'm held to it. A bag of quarters would've been so much cheaper...
becky! i was just trying to look for your email yesterday and couldn't find one. we will be there around that time! my nephew is getting baptized. when are you going back to california? it would be awesome if we could get together with bess & jannica (i can't think of any others of the gang that will be there then?). how can we get in touch?
Post a Comment